Thursday, August 29, 2013

Eternal Prey--Chapter 15-16

What happens in Chapter 16: Seir and Fin break Lia's brainwashing and Lia and Utah have sex.

Neither segment is all that interesting. We discover that Lia is afraid of ghosts. Fin and Seir have Family Issues (No shit) and want to stay apart even though they really do love each other. Nina Bangs can actually use the word "cock" in a sex scene and manage to make it kind of sexy. Lia feeds as a vampire and is able to stop from killing Utah in the process through the Power Of Love, though she refuses to actually say "I love you" because Lia Has Mommy Issues.

In other words, we've shot the plot dead for sex. Again.

I hate sex scenes in books.

So we're going into chapter 15 now. We've got no idea where Christine is, where The Thing Lia needs to kill Christine is, or how to move forward, and emotionally, all the salient plots that have driven this book have been resolved. Only one left is killing Christine, and honestly, have any of us given one flying fuck about the entire plot of this novel? Christine wants to grow a garden that Oscar Wilde's Nightengale could be proud of. Get back to us when she starts killing puppies.

In other words, it's time for the Plot Resolution Fairy to come flying out of somebody's ass.

Next chapter:

I swear to god half of these things have started with somebody banging on a door. At least it's not a dry twig.

So everybody has to go to the Media Room. Much lingering and kissing is done before Utah and Lia head down.

I have also just discovered that there is a character named "Lio", short for a dino name I will never be able to pronounce OR spell. Up until now I thought that was a misspelling. Yeah, it's not smart to have two characters with names one vowel apart, unless they are related fraternal twins who always appear together and their mother is supposed to be an uncreative hack with a heavy side of the cutesies.

Fin shows up and says that the city is about to be evacuated because RANDOM VOLCANIC EXPLOSION (and also bribed city official). Apparently this is Christine's going away party.

Well, as Plot Resolution Fairies go, this one is at least a little inventive.

Also: Kione and the Vampire Five will be working together.

So they all go to Random Explody Mountain, and Utah tries to talk Lia out of being the hero because he loves her and he doesn't want her to die (...legit. That ain't "you're a girl" talk, that's "you're valued over and beyond my own hide" talk.)

Seir shows up randomly. His dialogue summerizes the entire book:

“Live volcano, psycho immortal, wacko followers. Not a great place to take your date, Utah.” Seir wasn’t smiling.

Beautiful.

Everybody hikes up the mountain in a melodramatic fashion. We must fight but I don't want to die and MOUNTAIN EXPLODING sums it up pretty well. The dino guys go dino.

Utah still takes time out to examine Lia's ass. Flaming bag of dicks, ladies and gents. He'll never change.

And then Utah finds a ...no. NO. YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS, LITTLE BOOK. EVEN WITH THE OTHERKIN AND THE DINOSAURS AND THE VAMPIRES AND THE RANDOM VOLCAINO THIS IS TOO CRAZY EVEN FOR--you're serious.

When he had finished, he was surrounded by dead wolves, blood, and . . . a yellow flower...Lia would want the flower. The flower was important.

Oh. Oh my god. I totally forgot about this.

So Utah turns back into a human and picks the yellow flower and takes it over to Lia, who is having an "OH SHIT I FORGOT ALL MY KICK ASS WEAPONS" moment, because she forgot all her kick ass weapons and is standing right in front of Christine.

Christine started to turn when Lia was about twenty feet away from her. Oh no. Lia looked frantically around for a seven— buttons on a shirt, anything. Where the hell was the freaking seven Fin had said she’d find?

I am laughing so hard right now I can barely type.

Christine laughed. “How sweet. He’s bringing you a flower. We’ll put it on your grave.” Her laughter faded. “I could’ve destroyed all of your little attack party if Fin hadn’t used some of his power to protect you.”

You can't top this. You just can't.

Lia realizes that the flower does not have seven petals, she drops it to the ground, falls on her knees in front of it, waits to die...and then sees something that she missed the first time.

And as Christine reached out to take her heart, Lia scooped up the ladybug with its glorious seven spots from the flower’s petals and placed it on Christine’s outstretched hand. “There. A going-away gift from me to you, bitch.”

So just to recap what this book is:

It's a book about men posessed by the ghosts of dead dinosaurs, Bella Swan with a sword, perm and spine, Number-obsessed immortals who have the collective maturity of a two year old, a random dark Elf who we borrowed from Merry Gentry for a while, Random Panthers, Random Otherkin, Random Exploding Mountains and the big bad of the week gets defeated by a freaking ladybug.

WELCOME TO THE MIND FUCK.

AND THE CHAPTER IS NOT EVEN OVER.

Christine begs Fin for help. Fin is suddenly really interested in his manicure. She disappears. Adam appears! He wants to kill Utah. Utah talks him out of it. Lia and Jude share a "Let's kill Adam in his sleep" look.

Utah and Lia discuss her last minute, I'm-going-to-die-now "I love you". Utah did not reply with "I know". There is no justice in the universe.